[nitrous]

Originally Posted by lalvaz

Tata's build quality is a far cry from Maruti as of now.

Thats totally incorrect.
Maruti are cheapskates when it comes to build quality.

[dwaraka]

It is very well know fact that , Maruti Suzuki's plant is valued at almost zero compared to other car manufacturers. Means, plant cost , a component in costing is zero. This makes , Maruti cheapest option for best cars. Spares and accessories are almost 1/3rd of competitors. Service is impeccable and cheaper too.

Where I can't get place to eat and stay, I see a Maruti Service centre. Yes , as GTO pointed out JD Quality award is given to Maruti for consecutively 11 -12 years. .

You have vehicles for all class, from M800 to Grand Vitara and satisfies everybody's need and ego.

What else you can expect, which is not available with other cars. Even today, Maruti commands more than 50 % of car market in the country.

No wonder it crosses everybody's mind why maruti, why not others.

Dwarak

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by nitrous

Thats totally incorrect.
Maruti are cheapskates when it comes to build quality.

If everyone were as enlightened, it would reflect in the sales figures of Maruti!

[raj_5004]

anup sir is a man of few words! lol.....

maruti knows what indians need. indians, atleast those customers which maruti is targeting, dont care a damn about build quality. all they need is good FE, cheap service and easy drive, which maruti cars offer in plenty. all maruti cars except the swift sells due to these reasons, that its a "maruti"! the success behind swift is hugely its styling.

[DCEite]

All those here who talk about "Build Quality"

What exactly is " build quality" ?

Does it mean absence of rattles?
Does it refer to the heaviness (Tank™ like) ?
Does it refer to the doors that close with a "Reassuring Thud ™" ?
Is it just something Automags are obsessed with, like they are with "Inconsistent Panel Gaps" and "hard cornering" ?


FYI,
my 5 year old Maruti WagonR does not rattle. But my friend's Skoda Octavia has constant rattle from the rear left door.
Does that mean my Maruti has better build quality than Skoda?

What exactly is Build Quality? Someone please enlighten me more. Please.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by DCEite

.....
What exactly is Build Quality? Someone please enlighten me more. Please.

A very good question that is going to prove rather difficult to answer!

The simple fact is that the average Joe does not have a clue! He buys on considerations that are entirely different.

It is only the few that talk about these intangibles like 'build quality', which is an aspect that even they would be hard pressed to quantify!

Maruti's sales figures do the talking. We need not.

[kkdelhi]

IMO, Maruti is to cars what Bajaj is to two-wheelers. People trust them blindly when it comes to buying their products. The one big advantage these stalwarts have had is that they were first off the block when it came to providing VFM vehicles to customers. Add to it the wide network of sales and support these two companies have.

The other reason seems to be the 'variety' of options available with them.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by kkdelhi

IMO, Maruti is to cars what Bajaj is to two-wheelers. People trust them blindly when it comes to buying their products. The one big advantage these stalwarts have had is that they were first off the block when it came to providing VFM vehicles to customers. Add to it the wide network of sales and support these two companies have.

The other reason seems to be the 'variety' of options available with them.

i think u meant Hero Honda and not Bajaj!
Bajaj products are hardly known for reliability or quality!

[appuchan]

• First mover advantage
• Made best use of liberalization policy announced in early 90s
• Focused on mass market, not on niche
• Focused on after sales service
• Did not waste time on niche/premium segment where it could not get much headway
• Swift, and later SX4 to some extend, helped change its image to a more "contemporary" auto maker, attracted the "whiz kids"
• Filled all the price gaps in the sweet spot between 2 lacs and 8 lacs.
• Pioneered "small and personal diesel car" concept, yet to meet market demand

so on.....

However a Maruti is not for me..

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

1. If only Tatas had slightly better aft. sales service.
2. If only the Tata show room was slightly better.
3. If only Tata's petrols had slightly better reputation.
4. If only Tata's demo car had slightly less rattles.
5. If only I had waited till the vista was launched ...

[subscrive]

Reason for me buying M800 aka "Hunuman Aathshe" in my friend circle:
1. Was VFM while buying it 2nd hand in year 2000. (Neither were there any other choices in Y2K.)
2. Maruti care n my local garage guy is barely 1 km from my place - so easy of drop n pick up for scheduled / emergency maintenance.

[BlackPearl]

We have an alto and a baleno and both seems to be quite good in terms of build quality if rattle is the main concern. I owned a Palio and must admit that the Baleno does not seem to be that well built though being costlier, but it is far better than the Palio in terms of reliability. Around 17 years back my father bought a maruti omni after our ambassador started spending most of the time in the garage. he drove it for 5 years and it did not spend a single day in the garage other than regular maintenance jobs. So I think Maruti has built its reputation over a long period of time and other manufacturers will have a tough time to beat that.

[blue_pulsar]

1) FE: This is a very important factor for an Alto owner or 800 owner. Lets consider an example. A gentleman earns 15000pm and in his mid 40s. He has two kids, one college going and one school going. He owns a second or third hand M-800. Now tell me whether FE is important to him or not. Lets not consider people who earn a lac per month and care a damn about FE. Such people are only a handful anyway. Maruti is not for such people.

2) Resale: Maruti fetches the highest resale in small cars. Period. Although Hyundai is very close these days. No doubt Hyundai enjoys the same position in cities as Maruti. A poor man who barely affords a car cannot afford to lose half of a cars value in one year. This is absolutely true. I'm trying to find a second-hand Alto in Bangalore for almost a year now at a god price, but unable to find one. A 2-3 year Alto costs anywhere between 2.6-2.8 (New costs 3.3OTR). Can any other brand match this?

3) A.S.S and Cost of spares: Cost of spares and maintainance is very important to our common man. A person earning around 15K cannot afford to spend ~Rs.2300 on wheelcaps, can he? He has kids and old parents to look after.
And our common man has only one car unlike the rich. So he cannot afford to keep his car in garage waiting for half of its lifetime waiting for spare-parts. And whether rich or middle-class, why suffer this? Its a shame on such manufacturers.

4) Cost of cars: This is very important to our common man. He cannot afford a WagonR. At max he can afford is an M-800 without A/C(He would like to spend the extra money on his son's education). There is no other cars company (other than the late wake-up by Tata) who produce a car for 2Lacs On-road.

Now the features which some Maruti cars lack:
5) Safety-features: As I said earlier, our common man has sacrificed A/C on his M-800 to save for his son's education or daughter's marriage. Do you think he can afford airbags and ABS and traction control and etc etc?

6) Build Quality: Our common man prefers a cheaper car with rattles rather than a white elephant without it.


These are a few points why people prefer Maruti. Naturally when kids of our common man grows up, he has regards for Maruti because thats a company which put his dad on wheels and definitely prefer Maruti over other cars. When I was a kid, my dad owned Amby, Padmini, 800, Omni. No points for guessing which company won my heart.

Some of them rattle. agreed.
Actually , all of the marutis owned by my family rattled(9-10 M800s, 1 ZenD,1 Swift Petrol and my current lovable rattletrap- The Swift D)
None of them ever broke down, none of them were costly to own and service was always excellent. I'm looking at the A Star now
Why should I buy anything else?
But I must say-Hyundai is close. Very close.

Please note- all the cars except for the swift petrol did in excess of 1 lakh kms when sold and still gave astounding resale value.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by rippergeo

Some of them rattle. agreed.
Actually , all of the marutis owned by my family rattled(9-10 M800s, 1 ZenD,1 Swift Petrol and my current lovable rattletrap- The Swift D)
None of them ever broke down, none of them were costly to own and service was always excellent. I'm looking at the A Star now

Superb point : Your post has just inspired by latest thread!